Deficit crisis is chance to cut military bloat

In a recent column, George Will wrote about possible cuts in the military budget of nearly a trillion dollars over the next decade — an outcome of the recent debt-ceiling agreement ("Panetta confronts specter of downsized U.S. military," Star-Advertiser, Sept. 18).

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said flatly, "These cuts cannot take place." But as Will pointed out, Panetta knows that they can and that whatever reductions are called for by the so-called supercommittee sitting under the authority of the debt-ceiling agreement, the military "is going to be a smaller force."

Conversely, in the front-page story of the same Star-Advertiser issue, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was more sanguine about the future of the military in Hawaii, asserting that the area of major concern has shifted from Europe and the Atlantic to Asia and the Pacific, and that "the military is in Hawaii because of its strategic placement on the planet" ("Budget woes hang over isle military expansion," Star-Advertiser, Sept. 18).

In truth, however, the Middle East, not Europe, has been our major strategic concern since the end of the Cold War and will likely remain so for the indefinite future. Further, in today’s world, Hawaii’s strategic significance may rest more on nostalgia than reality, and the military presence here will continue to be largely about jobs and the politics of military spending.

In that regard, Inouye has served the people of Hawaii well, but his prediction that the military here "will either increase or stay as it is for maybe a decade or so," overlooks the likelihood that Hawaii will take its share of budgetary hits along with the rest of the defense establishment.

Confronted with the possibility of large reductions in military spending, it would be instructive to reflect on then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell speech, in which he warned that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex. …"

In his recently published book, "Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War," Andrew J. Bacevich explores the anatomy of Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex — a host of special interests populated by those who gain power, prestige and wealth from a state of perpetual war. Besides the federal government itself, Bacevich identifies them as defense contractors, corporations, ideologues, big banks, think tanks, universities, the media — and the list goes on.

Precisely because of the influence of misplaced power which Eisenhower warned against, Bacevich’s book might have been destined for the dusty archives of military historiography if debt-ceiling politics hadn’t recently entered the picture. But perhaps now, the mandated military spending cuts worrying Panetta leave no choice but to seriously examine the possibilities for military reform.

It won’t be easy; old shibboleths die hard. Thousands of military and military-related personnel and huge chunks of regional economies like Hawaii’s would be affected. But the impact of the budget reductions would span a decade — time that can be used, in Eisenhower’s words, to "compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

The question is whether Panetta can or will lead the Pentagon back to the true concept of defense rather than on to endless war.

James D. Abts, of Hawaii, is a retired Army colonel, veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam; international military affairs analyst for the U.S. General Accounting Office.